The Tim Tebow Effect

Seems like the whole nation has opinion on Denver Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow these days. Well, as a proud alumnus of the University of Florida and a die-hard Gator fan, I am among the legion of fans rooting hard for the guy.

I pull for Tebow not just because he was a great Gator or because many pundits predicted he would not succeed as an NFL quarterback. I root for #15 because in today’s society that is incessantly about “me,” Tebow is all about “we.”

There are so many reasons for Tebow’s appeal, but I believe his authentic humility is the most powerful force driving his popularity. He’s such a refreshing antidote in this narcissistic day and age and he embodies the contrast between how many athletes (or celebrities) conduct themselves and how we as fans wish they would act. Consider:

• Other athletes whine about being “disrespected,” while Tebow actually was disrespected yet never once complained.
• Other athletes go out of their way to seek attention, while Tebow just attracts attention.
• Other athletes demand respect.  Tebow earns it.

Tebow leads by example.  He’s the star, yet he’s the hardest working player on the team. He’s the first to admit he’s not perfect, and he’s quick to acknowledge how he needs to improve. And, yes, while he’s constantly praising “his Lord and savior,” he always gives credit to his coaches and teammates too.

At Allison+Partners, we have a set of core values that we strive to live by and, last month, I was humbled to be among the recipients of our agency’s “Corey Award” for “nurturing a collaborative environment.”   Watching Tebow and the Broncos during their six-game winning streak, and hearing about his motivational “iron sharpens iron” pre-game speech to his teammates, we have seen how Tebow has done just that in Denver. The Broncos are hardly the most talented team in the NFL, but they have rallied together and epitomize teamwork and chemistry.

These are good lessons not just for athletes, but for everyone. And that’s another reason why Tebow is so popular beyond the football field.

Anyone who works in a PR agency can appreciate the importance of teamwork, of recognizing the contributions of your colleagues, and of putting collective interests above individual pursuits. After all, it’s not about you or me, it’s about the client. And, as we also like to say around here, “it’s about the work.”

~Larry Krutchik, Los Angeles

Then & Now: Allison+Partners’ Evolution through the Eyes of an Old-Timer

Few things are as boring as an “old-timer” reminiscing about the good old days, whether it is his or her golden years or an earlier “more magical time” in an organization’s history. That’s why when Scott Allison asked me to blog something about my reflections on the agency as we hit our 10-year milestone, I panicked. How would I manage to write something that wouldn’t put everyone to sleep?

Seeking to avoid a verbose trip down memory lane, I resorted to my familiar crutch … bullet points! Why not list a few observations from this old-timer (I joined Allison+Partners in February 2003!), highlighting not just what’s different today than the early years, but also a few of the ways in which we’ve remained the same.

Allison+Partners Today – What’s Different:

• Our offices are nicer, and some of us even have a front desk person. When I joined the company, the San Francisco office was a bit of a ramshackle operation stuffed in one big room with a mishmash of grey cubicles and open desks. The walls were bare, sans framed artwork or even client clips. When a guest visited, they had to wander aimlessly around, tapping on someone’s shoulder to get their attention, as there was no front desk and definitely no Brigitta.
• We have infrastructure – things like an HR person, ongoing training and professional development programs, a full-time marketing director to keep our collateral updated and consistent. When I started in 2003, a 23-year-old recent college grad was splitting time between office management/basic HR duties and administrative support for Andy Hardie-Brown, and she was your only source for questions about your W2 form and payroll. Marketing collateral – besides a tombstone-looking murky grey and black logo – consisted of whatever was on file from the last new business proposals created. Training was whatever classes a person found on their own and asked the company to pay for them to attend. The idea that someday we would have such a robust ongoing training and professional development program as headed by the amazing Courtney Newman would have blown our minds.
• People know us! When you tell someone on the train who you work for, chances are more than 50-50 they will have heard of us. Maybe our name recognition is not yet at Burson or Edelman levels, but it’s creeping up there. Flash back to so many networking events of the mid-2000s when you’d see a blank look when introducing yourself from “Allison+Partners.” It’s nice to skip that routine.
• Big brands on the roster. We finally work with – and now even attract inbound RFPs from some of the biggest brands in the country. Best Western, Progressive, eHarmony, Samsung, Orbitz … these brand names were the stuff of dreams for us back in 2003, when 1-800-Radiator and the Sheet Metal Workers Union were paying our bills.
• Family time. Yes, today more of us have babies … and more than a few grey hairs to go with them. When I had my son in 2007 I think I was only the second woman to have ever taken maternity leave at Allison+Partners. Figuring out how to navigate working moms back into the fold and handle flexible schedules has been a challenge for senior management, but today it seems we have more than our fair share of moms and dads successfully juggling parenthood with the rigors of agency life. Baby visits to the office – once rare – are a regular occurrence in the SF office now.

What remains the same:

• Everyone still works really hard. Let’s face it – this is agency life, folks, and it will never ever be a 9-5, Monday – Friday job. However, it’s worth noting that this hard work ethic starts at the top, with both of “The Scotts” still rolling up their sleeves with client work on a regular basis, and all of the partners leading by solid example in the diligence department.
• But we still know how to play, too. Sure, we got in trouble one year at a now infamous company retreat that left Allison+Partners banned from a certain hotel in Pismo Beach forever. But there’s no changing a company culture that’s been built around strong personalities and a wicked sense of humor since day one. The San Francisco office, for example, hosts “beer and a shot” breaks in the late afternoon about once a week , and after-work happy hours at Gio’s and Aventine are more the norm than the exception around here.
• It’s still an extremely entrepreneurial place – maybe more so than ever. Now, though, we are not inventing new ways to manage clients (“Wow, how about doing a ‘Scope of Work’ every month?), but coming up with new ways to solve communications problems and further business objectives while building agency revenue. Everything from the creation of BIG to a budding video production department and a Hispanic Marketing practice show the continuing belief in and support for new ideas and ventures beyond the standard media relations offering.
• We still do great work – in a variety of practice areas and disciplines. At the first-ever retreat, we had a workshop to create the company’s mission statement and core values. “It’s about the work” was a phrase I threw out there to capture the idea of valuing our work property – how creative and innovative and ultimately effective our strategies and execution were on behalf of clients – rather than how big the agency could grow or the amount of profit we could amass. I’m proud to say that today that value has been borne out. Every time I read about the awards an office has received for a brilliant campaign, or see the recent results of a client, I am reminded that we do indeed do great work … just as we did “back then.”

~Aimee Grove, San Francisco

How I Screw Around Online When I Should be Writing Press Releases

The dirty little secret of all public relations professionals is the amount of time we spend each day on various websites, social networks and online communities. Every day I see people close their web-browsers with lightning-fast reflexes as colleagues approach lest they are discovered to be on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Amazon, YouTube, eBay, Pandora, Quora, Digg, Ning, Reddit, LinkedIn, Foursquare or Gowalla. It’s the reason those rear-view mirrors that clip onto your PC monitor were invented.

Most, if not all, of these online properties are still deemed by many in positions of authority as ‘non-work-related’ and a frivolous waste of time – a productivity killer at best and a breach of your professional contract at worst. Some companies actively block them in an attempt to shut out the outside world completely in case one of their auto-bots should suddenly remember that the world does extend beyond the beige walls of their cubicle and stop writing code, drafting legal writs, selling insurance or whatever else.

It is interesting how deeply this perception still runs; even at companies that you would assume ‘get it’. Mashable’s Ben Parr recently reported on how few of Google’s senior management team actually spends time on Google+. He concedes that “Google’s management is a busy group,” but goes on to say that “having only three members of its management team post more than 10 times sends a terrible message.” I would opine that on some deep, subconscious level, Google’s C-suite of brilliant, super-achievers believes that screwing around on Google+ is just not a productive use of their time.

I would like to offer the argument that not only is this time not spent frivolously, but the knowledge and experience gained by regular and consistent interaction with these platforms are essential to the PR skill-set. They are vital if you want to be able to present yourself as a trusted influential advisor to your clients and not just a hired gun, cranking out press releases and compiling coverage reports. Besides, in a few years, they’ll have apps for that.

The online experience is a deeply personal one, tailored to any number of interests, both personal and professional, but there a couple of channels that we all use (or should) for one reason or another. I am going to focus on the two most popular ones and one from out of left-field in an effort to un-demonize them a little and try to explain the value I get from them as a PR professional. There are a plethora of others (Quora, Google+ or YouTube for example) that also qualify, but I’ll save those for another day.

Facebook

I would hazard a guess that everyone reading this has a profile of some description. On a very basic level, Facebook has allowed me to break down the barriers of time, distance and in a lot of cases, unfamiliarity. At the time of writing, I have 439 friends on Facebook. Of those, I would consider less than fifty to be close friends. The rest are made up of a motley crew of past and present colleagues, clients, media contacts and ‘industry influencers’. Facebook allows me to maintain some kind of a relationship with all of these people without ever actually having to see them in person. I can let them into my personal life and access theirs at a whim. I can show them the guy behind the in-box and give them a reason to take my phone call. This is an extraordinary opportunity for someone who works in an industry that is so reliant on their network of relationships.

I am a fairly open and honest with what I post on Facebook and I have pretty relaxed privacy settings too because I want to provide access to whoever wants it. If I don’t want to share it with the public, I don’t post it on Facebook. Simple as that. I have also found Facebook to be an incredible resource over the years for digging up useful info on reporters or prospects I am looking to pitch. I was recently doing some digging into the in-house PR guy at one of the top global digital camera manufacturers and discovered that we had no less than 30 friends in common – most of them camera reporters. It was not hard to get an introduction and now we have plans to grab drinks the next time he is in the city.

You can friend me here.

Twitter

Twitter is an easy sell. Perhaps the easiest in a PR setting. It is simply the single best resource for breaking news that exists today. I post a moderate amount on Twitter. Most of this gets lost in the Twittersphere for the most part and I don’t truly ‘engage’ as much as I would like, but with 250 followers (some of them actually legitimate industry pundits) I’m getting there. Where Twitter really shines for me is that when news breaks, Twitter is where it breaks first. As a PR professional, just by signing up for an account and following a few of the main news outlets (AP, Reuters, NY Times, WSJ, CNN, Fox News, etc.) you are better off than you were five minutes ago. Now expand that over time with some actual reporters and influencers that cover whatever industry you need to follow and you are on the front lines of the news. And this is all without ever actually having to Tweet anything yourself. It also helps to follow @shitmydadsays too because god knows you’ll need some fodder for those uncomfortable silences at the next media dinner you have to staff.

You can follow me here.

Shared-Experience Online Community

“A what?” I hear you say. Slightly different to a social network which connects you to people you know first before moving further afield (think Facebook and Twitter), this category encompasses any online community that connects complete strangers around a central theme (think online message boards or fan forums). I have belonged to one in particular for almost ten years now and it ranks up there as the single most valuable online resource I have. It started as a fairly run-of-the-mill soccer fan blog for the North London team I grew up supporting – Arsenal – and has grown into one of the most heavily-trafficked fan blogs in the world. But that is aside the point. The fact that it’s a soccer blog at all is completely irrelevant. It’s the community that is so valuable.

Arseblog runs a closed forum. It has done for a number of years now. The blog’s founder, an Irishman known only and mysteriously as ‘Arseblogger’, decided that once the forum membership grew to a few thousand, he wanted to shut the gates to preserve the community with a manageable number of regulars. People can still apply, and many still do, but they are admitted rarely and only with a direct reference from within the ranks. This has had an incredibly stabilizing effect on the community and has meant that ten years later, most of the original members are still regular contributors.

But why is that valuable? And what the hell has that got to do with PR?

Well, for one, it provides me with a significant (but focused) group of highly-diverse, tech-savvy, early adopters to dip into whenever I need to. There are a fair number of luddites, but the site’s membership is overwhelmingly digital native. They are spread widely across the globe, are plugged into every trend, industry, culture and demographic and because the forums are closed and protected, are completely open and honest, brutally so at times, with their recourse.

Access to this community has had an incredible impact on my career and the value that I have been able to bring to my colleagues and clients over the years. If I need an immediate and impartial opinion on an industry, company, product or service, Arseblog is usually the first place that I go. I have discovered more breaking news, global trends, behind-the-scenes stories from Arseblog than any single other source over the last ten years. Want to know whether iOS or Android platforms are more popular in Iceland? Someone on Arseblog knows. Want some quick feedback on a PR stunt idea? Whether a video has the potential to go viral? An appropriate gift for a Taiwanese client? How to ask for a raise and not get laughed at? That’s where I usually go first.

My point is, we work in an industry that lives and breathes on information. Does it really matter where that information comes from?

~Mike Steavenson, New York 

When Entrepreneurs Collide

I have to admit, I’m not a conference kind of guy. I cringe when I’m at a hotel and see people walking around with the laminated name tags around their necks.  Better them than me is my usual thought. I’ve long believed time is much better spent working, playing, or building an ant farm than sitting in a conference room listening to people drone on and suffering through a miserable chicken dish at the buffet lunch.

Low and behold, my attitude has changed after spending a few days at the EO Alchemy conference in Los Angeles last week. I grudgingly agreed to attend at the prodding of my good friend and fellow entrepreneur Hunter Elkins. Hunter promised it would be a good event and based on his recommendation, I decided to sign up.

EO Alchemy was developed by Reza Bavar and a group of volunteers from Entrepreneurs Organization (EO). Now I should have known Reza was good for putting together a great event as he previously had organized an incredible night at the Playboy Mansion. That’s for another blog, though.

This event was a gathering of approximately 400 entrepreneurs from around the world who came to listen to great speakers, attend workshops and hoist a few drinks with like-minded business people.

The speakers ranged from Biz Stone of Twitter to Magic Johnson and about 50 incredible people in between. Like most entrepreneurs, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. We’re all too busy and focused on our businesses. However, when you bring together a group of 400 men and women from all different regions of the planet, you begin to realize there are some real common denominators with folks like us.

Number one, we’re all optimists. We believe we can make the world a better place. We believe growing a business and giving back is the best contribution we can make.

Number two, we’re all basically un-employable. We can’t be too confined by rules and have anyone tell us we can’t.

Number three, entrepreneurs like to party and stay up really late!

I will say there was one line that really resonated with me. One of the last speakers of the conference spoke about our education system and stated, “We don’t need to train people to get a job; we need to train people to create a job.”

Amen. Pass the chicken and I will be back for EO Alchemy in 2012.

~Scott Allison, President & CEO, San Francisco

Fearless

Some of my Allison & Partners colleagues have written about the core value “Empower Others to Reach Their Full Potential,” and it truly is lived by our staff, from intern to partner, every single day. However, I think there is another side to this core value that calls on everyone to be empowered and not be afraid to reach their own full potential.

From what I’ve seen, PR attracts the overachiever. I definitely fit into this category and one of my biggest fears has always been failure. What if I try something and don’t succeed? I can remember my first year in agency life and how scary everyday activities could be.

• Phone follow-up? What if the journalist is upset or yells at me or hangs up on me? (All three of these fears have come true.)
• Plan an event? What if no one shows up?
• Write a press release? What if it’s not what my manager is looking for?

As I became more comfortable with my skills and learned more about the industry, my fears started to subside and I started to notice a pattern – the more willing I was to set aside my fears and go for it, the more success I was able to have.

I’m now able to look at a challenge with excitement and a willingness to take on the challenge knowing that failure is a possibility, but that success is much more likely.

This past month, I was able to successfully complete the most challenging and exciting project I’ve ever been given. I staffed a Best Western/Harley-Davidson media FAM trip in Northern California all by myself. A FAM trip is a familiarization trip for members of the media to get to know Best Western better. My role involved coordinating some of the trip details, ensuring we stayed on schedule, working with the media and driving a mini-van behind the Harley-Davidson riders through California.

While the negative thoughts still wanted to creep into my brain, I knew that my Allison & Partners managers had faith in me and would support me through the entire process. I also knew that I had the experience and skills to pull it off and I did it.

And when it was time to try riding on the back of a motorcycle for the first time in my life, I called upon my PR experience and without fear rode through Napa Valley – leather riding gear and all.

With everything I’ve learned, I’ll do my best to empower others, and I encourage everyone to be fearless.

~Laura Zilverberg, Phoenix

Celebrating our First Decade in Business

Prior to acquiring the assets of our previous agency, Scott Allison, Andy Hardie-Brown and I were at an event. Reflecting on what we had accomplished at our previous firm Andy stated, “I have enjoyed working with the two of you so much; I can’t envision a better team to work with. When I retire in 2030, I know that the two of you will be the first to be invited to the party and that we will be working happily together for a long time!”

I don’t think Andy realized how prophetic his statement was.  In building a home or building, before you can lay down a foundation, before you can put up the beams, the insulation or any of the accessories, there needs to be an architect.  I believe the same thing can be said when building a business.

In our first two anniversary blogs, we have talked about the famous napkin meeting that launched Allison & Partners.  A story that might not be as well-known is the one about the silent and humble architect who laid down the template for our company and actually drew the notes on the napkin, Andy Hardie-Brown.

I have worked with Andy for nearly 12 years now and always find him thinking constantly about how we can grow our company.  Andy is not an account handler, but he is responsible for creating a culture and a leadership team unlike any company that I have ever worked with.

A few weeks back, we had a senior-level meeting for roughly 20 of Allison & Partners’ senior vice presidents, general managers and partners. When discussing our culture and core values, I asked a question to the group, “How many of you were recruited by Andy Hardie-Brown?”  To my amazement, more than three quarters of the room were brought in specifically by him.

What is unique about this is what Andy brings to the table.  Like Scott Allison, Andy’s focus is not on himself as a leader but on building a different kind of company, one in which people can grow personally and professionally while still doing the work, not just pushing paper.  Andy listened to each individual; he gave them a vision of what this company would look like and the impact that an individual could make on both our teams and clients.

Andy and I once had a conversation that clearly brought this to light for me.  We sat a table and he grabbed a salt shaker and pepper shaker.  The pepper shaker was the standard agency, doing the standard work and basically just doing what needed to be done to survive.  The salt shaker was Allison & Partners, which was about doing the best that could be done for its clients; it was about hiring the best people and about growing into a significant international company unlike many other public relations firms.  His quote, “I never want to be the pepper shaker,” has stuck with me.

Ten years later, we are the salt shaker and we have never looked back!  The foundation has been built for another ten years of growth.

The next blog in this four-part series: “It’s About the Work – Empowering Someone to Reach his Full Potential – Jonathan Heit.”

~Scott Pansky, Co-Founder and Partner, Los Angeles

Where PR, Poop Scooping and Fire Fighting Collide

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Earlier this month, I returned from my sabbatical – an amazing perk of working at Allison & Partners. Once you are here for five years, the company rewards you with a month off to explore your passions, yourself and the world. These days, staying at any job for five years is uncommon; however, at Allison & Partners it is the norm.

In August, I completed one of my dreams by traveling to South Africa for three and a half weeks. It was broken up into two parts, the first two weeks I volunteered at Cheetah Experience in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The second half was spent reflecting on all that I had seen and done, and exploring Cape Town and the surrounding area.

Cheetah Experience promotes and funds the conservation of the Cheetah and other endangered species and relies on a steady rotation of volunteers from around the world to help. I was lucky and started with nine other volunteers from the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and Austria, ranging in ages from 19-50+. We instantly became one big family – I called it adult camp.

We did everything from playing and working with the animals, to the not-so-glamorous task of picking up poop and feeding raw meat to the animals (FYI: zebra meat is by far the smelliest, instant gag), and even experienced the excitement of putting out a wildfire with wet bath towels. Yes, about a dozen women and three men rode in a pickup truck with buckets of water into a veld fire about a mile and a half long and put the entire thing out by soaking bath towels in water and extinguishing the flames. I have a newfound respect for firefighters – we had soot in our lungs, ears and crevices for days.

To be honest, working with wild animals is not all that different than PR – some days things go smoothly and we love each other; other days it’s more like a jungle. Both take a certain kind of individual who is willing to work hard, dig in and get their hands dirty, and pay attention to the details. In the end, you reap big rewards.

You can view a short video of photos from my experience here: http://animoto.com/play/Ntyi8vtKSGY73jngwcGytQ

The next 10 days I spent in and around Cape Town exploring, what they call, the “Mediterranean of Africa,” experiencing the culture, indigenous people and reflecting on all I had witnessed.

While we always felt safe, the poverty in South Africa is high. What amazed me was how even though some of the locals had little and lived in shanty cities, they almost always had a smile on their face. One of my favorite moments was when we drove past a group of elementary school children. We stopped to give out pencils, crayons and colored pencils we brought from the U.S. The children were young but they still spoke a decent amount of English; they were eager to see what we had but always polite. We asked them their favorite colors and gave out the crayons, but the real joy came when we dug out the pencils. Pencils, a simple writing tool for us (that we hardly use anymore), were pure gold to them. Luckily we had enough to go around, but next time I go I now know to bring cases.

The entire four weeks were the best experience of my life. I was fortunate enough to see another part of the world, experience how other cultures live and reflect. It provided me with a nice break from my everyday life to realize how fortunate we are, to not take things for granted and to come back refreshed. It’s an experience I could talk about every day. I hope to be able to integrate my new knowledge into work, excite and inspire my teams, and provide a new perspective to client work. Who knows, maybe one day we will have an A&P South Africa office!

~Tara Chiarell, New York

The Blouin Creative Leadership Summit

On rare occasions you get to do something extraordinary. This past week I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at the Blouin Creative Leadership Summit in New York on Arab Spring and the role of technology in communications, protests and revolutions.

The Blouin event is held in partnership with the United Nations. As the UN was in session, an amazing group of speakers were present to participate. Our panel was moderated by Riz Khan, a well-known contributor for Al Jazeera. Other panelists included a journalist from the Los Angeles Times, the chairman of the Palestine Monetary Authority and professors from several distinguished universities focused on Middle East studies.

As I was preparing for the discussion on the train from Boston to New York, I thought about how technology has changed the status quo on many fronts. I remembered that just over seven years ago a company was started above a pizza restaurant in San Mateo. That start-up was YouTube and in those seven years it has changed the communications landscape forever. We were fortunate to work with them in the early days and see firsthand the growing impact they had around the world. YouTube and also Facebook and Twitter, played a significant role in the protests and uprisings in Libya and Egypt. Many protestors said they used Facebook to schedule events, Twitter to organize and update, and YouTube to show the world what was happening.

While governments will continue to commit atrocities against their citizens, thanks to these vital communications tools they will never again do so in isolation.

We live in interesting times.

~Scott Allison, President & CEO